EP 77: They Transferred $25M to a Deepfake — Why Your AI Isn't as Governed as You Think | Dr. Latha Karthigaa
Episode notes
In this episode of Inside AsembleAI, host Mac Goswami sits down with Dr. Latha Karthigaa — Director & Head of AI Governance at the Global AI Certification Council (GAICC) — on why most companies that think their AI is governed are dangerously wrong, and what responsible AI actually looks like.
What's Covered:
"A Policy Is Not Governance" — The biggest myth in enterprise AI. Latha's highway analogy: governance is the guardrail that lets you drive faster, not the thing slowing you down.
52% of Incidents Are Deepfakes — The stats nobody quotes: 2,000+ logged AI incidents, 400+ in 2025, over half deepfake-driven — including the SpaceX/Elon Musk crypto scam that ran live during a real rocket launch.
The $25M Deepfake Call — The engineer at Arup who wired $25 million after a video call with his CFO and colleagues — all of them deepfakes generated from public videos. Why employee training, not just policy, is the real defense.
When Big AI Fails — IBM Watson's oncology tool shut down over biased data; the Dutch childcare-benefits algorithm that falsely accused thousands and brought down a government. Why Latha says the best governance pros are empathetic humans first.
Who Owns the Risk? — "ChatGPT isn't responsible — you are." Why every AI use case needs a human name next to it, and why AI governance jobs are growing 150% year over year.
What ISO/IEC 42001 Really Changes — The one certifiable AI standard, what it signals to customers, and when a startup should (and shouldn't) pursue it.
Key Quote: "Policy is like potential power. Execution is the real power."
Connect with Latha: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lathakarthigaa/
GAICC: https://www.gaicc.org/ · YouTube: Latha – AI Governance
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